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Feb 27, 2011

Nokia sneaks a look at new Symbian UI during China event

Perched behind Nokia's head of smart devices,Jo Harlow, at a recent event in China is what appears to be a new home screen on anN8, yet more evidence -- hot on the heels of the company'sMWC event-- that Espoo still has plenty of love in the wings for its dead-platform-walking. Notably, it appears they're looking at migrating key information to the top of the screen to create a dedicated status bar, which would presumably stay visible as you navigate from screen to screen -- akin to most other platforms on the market -- accompanied by a string of soft button icons at the bottom. Interestingly, the UI in some respects mirrors what we saw on the leaked shots of the apparently killedN9-- small black status bar and icons along the bottom -- which would seem to tell us one of two things: either the N9 was a Symbian device all along, or the company had planned on standardizing UI elements between its future Symbian andMeeGoroadmaps. Either way, this looks like a nice improvement... and in all likelihood, a far cry from what we'll see when these guys start busting outWindows Phone 7devices.[Technorati Tags: Nokia, Symbian]